covering the week, dan of "the washington post." nancy and todd. >> award-winning reporting and analysis. covering history as it happens. from our nation's capital, this is "washington week". produced in association with national journal d, corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here. to connect our forces to what they need when they need it.

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message, no single winner and no single loser. these summertime primaries are telling us how little about a lot. the democrats are facing a host of dire questions, according to the latest polls. has the economy hit bottom? 64% say no. do you approve of the job the president's doing? 48% say no. do you approve of the job congress is doing? 72% say no. ok, so that's good news for the republicans, right? not necessarily. 46% have negative feelings about the gop and even the tea party movement is viewed more negatively than positively. that's the way everybody is feeling right now. so how did all that unhappiness play out in this week's primaries? let's start in colorado. dan, why don't you start. >> in colorado what we saw, gwen, was on the one hand a good night for the incumbents, that was on the democratic side wrrks appointed senator fended off a very difficult challenge from

former democratic house speaker. so, a good night for income been asy and president obama who had backed him very strongly. on the republican side, a good night for outsiders. the weld county prosecutor defeated the former lieutenant governor and establishment choice. he was the tea party candidate, so to speak, and he defeated her in the end fairly handley. , so you can take whatever reading or meaning you want out of colorado and it would be right. gwen: how about in georgia? >> in georgia, a former congressman won the nomination there. and that was seen as somewhat more of an establishment candidate. he had washington ties. so you can't -- it's not across the board. but it does seem to be in general in part because what have dan was talking about, that the anti-establishment feeling is more rost within the republican party. but even in the democratic party, it's sometimes hard to sort these things out.

on the democratic side in colorado, andrew, sort of the challenger, had been the house speaker in colorado, had been legislator of the year. so he had a lot of accomplishments as a elected democrat. bennett, even though he's the incumbent senator, was running his very first campaign ever because he had been appointed to that job. so you could argue that he was washington but not really establishment. gwen: one more thing into this. it also requires some understanding about this in connecticut where -- were these insiders who won? outsiders who won? >> i think you would have to say there the outsider won over rob simmons. she won in classic old-fashioned way which was she bought the nomination. she spent tens of millions of dollars to win the nomination. but she clearly was the outsider and the newcomer in that race. gwen: what about instead? wasn't he supposed to be making his big comeback running for governor of connecticut? >> it didn't work out.

gwen: it didn't work out by an awful lot. >> one what do those verge divisions in the party -- erm internal divisions in the party say? >> i think that -- there's nothing that happened this week, whether it was through the election results or through the public opinion surveys that we saw that change the basic direction of the year, which is to say, you know, the democrats are going to lose a lot of seats properly this fall at this point. everything's tilted against them. it's a year of anti-washington, anti-income bents. most incumbents will still win but democrats will take a bigger hit on. that but as chuck said, there's more ferment right now in the republican party, there's more intensity. so what you're seeing is that in republican primaries, establishment candidates are getting knocked off. the voters are not taking their cues in the republican primary from the republican establishment. they're also nominating some candidates who may be weaker in

the fall than the establishment candidates might have been on the other -- been. on the other hand, because there's so much energy we're seeing on the republican side, republicans say, in the end, that's what will help us. >> so give than, are the republicans worried about how these anti-establishment candidates will do in the fall elections? >> they are somewhat worried about that. and the democrats are very much hoping that these outside the mainstream nominees that the republicans are nominating will be too much for the general election voters to swallow. it's not clear that that's going to happen. probably the best chance for that to happen is in nevada where sharon, a tea party candidate, topped the nomination to run against harry reid who is in terrible trouble there. but she may be so unacceptable. and reid is spending a lot of money making her unacceptable, that he can get elected. if you look at a state like kentucky, kentucky's a republican state. a mainstream competent republican candidate would probably win the senate election there. well, they -- the republicans

nominated rand paul who is not in the mainstream. but does that mean he can't get elected? i don't think that's at all clear. gwen: tea parties aren't necessarily the automatic key to the kingdom either. in colorado, as you pointed out, the nominee was a tea party candidate and in georgia some of the incumbent republicans are telling sarah palin and the tea party to stay out. >> that's right. the tea party -- we've all had difficulty really getting our arms around what the tea party really is. it varies from state to state. in a place like kentucky it's quite strong, obviously, in what it did in that primary. i was in ohio recently and asked some of the republicans there, what's the tea party movement like here? they basically said it's a movement with a small capital. so we don't know how it's going to work. the democrats have been, i would say, very aggressive in trying to lump every candidate who auto seems slightly out of the mainstream as a tea party candidate.

linda mcmahon is not too much of a tea party can't date. buck is -- candidate. buck is a tea party candidate. gwen: democrats have some problems, too. this week we heard that white house press secretary step in a little bit. he gave an interview in which he said, among other things, he said, i hear these people saying, he that would mean the president, is like george bush. those people ought to be drug tested, he said. i mean, it's crazey. they'll be satisfied when we have canadian health care. we've eliminated the pentagon. that's not reality. wrblings he walked that back a couple of days later but not before he'd really made a lot of liberals unhappy. >> i was kind of surprised that there was thatch reaction to what robert gibbs said. because there's a tremendous amount of frustration within the white house towards the hardcore -- or he called them professional -- gwen: the professional left. >> yes. but the hardcore liberals certainly did have a lot to do

with getting barack obama elected. and yet at the same time there's a sense in the white house that they're not being cognizant enough of how things work, especially in the senate where even a diminished minority, which you have in the republicans, can stop almost everything and they feel like, come on, guys, give as you break. we're doing the best we can. we had to make a lot of concessions on health care, for example. we got a bill, you should be happy with that. and the left is saying, no, we don't think you've tried hard enough. >> don't presidents of eater party disappointing their -- either party disappointing their supporters? president clinton was singularly effective in bridging some of those divides but he came in for criticism. >> he did. i think that if the professional left, quote-unquote, were as disaffected as it sometimes it is made out to be, you might have seen a difficult result in colorado. i think andrew had all of the sort of tools and attributes to be able to tap into that. president obama is not as

popular in colorado today as he was two years ago which is the case in many states. so, i think there is frustration on the left but i don't know at this point how significantly it will play out. >> you look at these poll number wes saw this week, it looks like everybody should be -- numbers we saw this week. it looks like everybody should be frustrated. >> the democrats oddly enough are running not so much on their accomplishments as one might think, given that they got the big stimulus bill, the health care bill. this is landmark legislation. because those things are still not proving very popular, what they talk about the most in this is true of president obama, is, let's don't go back to george bush. every speech he makes, every political speech now, he makes that analogy of they drove the car into the ditch, now they want the keys. don't give them the keys back. a lot of republicans say, that ain't going to work. george bush has been out of office for two years.

you got to take ownership. and that may be a strong point for the republicans. >> there's a gal up poll that came out that is asked, what are the issues that are important to you? this is overwhelming. 58% either cited the economy or jobs and unemployment. everything else pales. the question of, we hate washington, 12%. 7% said health care. 4% cited either the wars in afghanistan or iraq. gwen: so in the end it's all, what does it have to do with me? are you talking about me? as it often is. >> exactly right. gwen: thanks. a funny thing happened this week on the way to balancing the deficit. the secretary of defense, whose budget has doubled since 2001, has actually proposed eliminating thousands of jobs and shutting down an entire command. >> training joint forces, generating joint forces, creating joint docket rin and experimenting with that docket rin are all valuable tasks. however they do not necessarily require a separate four-star

combat ant command. gwen: secretary gates and president obama pour trade this announcement as responsible and accountable spending. how real is all of that? >> in the face of it looks like a big deal. cutting one of 10 military commands. but joint forces command does a lot of important tasks that will be sent off to other commands like strat-com or north com, some of the other combined commands. how many jobs will be eliminated in it doesn't seem like it's going to be that big -- eliminated? it doesn't seem like it's going to be that big. and the secretary also suggested that the defense budget needs to remain high. and it is as high as it's ever been. usually the defense budget falls after major conflict but the secretary suggested that that needs to stop and that defense spending needs to continue. gwen: sounds like a conflict here. on one hand saying, and the president came out with a statement and patted him on the back, look at us, we're going to

cut our own budget, but don't cut it any more than that. >> and it raises the question, is this about being fiscally responsible or streamlining the budget? the budget, every budget is always what the priorities are of the department. and think the secretary's trying to channel his priorities and leave a real long-term legacy on the department, not just in terms of dealing with the wars, the direction and focus of the defense department. since 9/11 everything has grown under the defense department and i think there's a recognition that under these economic pressures it can't continue. >> what's been the response on capitol hill to this? >> well, not surprisingly, i imagine that the secretary made this announcement while they were in recess, but some took some time to voice their opposition, especially those in virginia. you know, traditionally liberal democrats have been for pushing -- purr push for cuts in the budget with all the economic problems the country is in right now, i think there's an

expectation in the pentagon that they'll start to hear more pressure when they return. >> is secretary gates making such a big deal about spending and budget cuts that this will be a huge part of his legacy, given that we do have two wars going on, you might think that the pure military aspects might define the secretary of defense at a war time? >> it's funny. he has said at that very press conference that he wasn't leaving any time soon. this was the secretary clock counting down to the bush administration and then vowed to leave a few months after that. i think the feeling is that he keeps staying through budget cycles. he really sees the way you have a real impact on the defense department long-term is in this budget and where you put things. he didn't just cut the -- he wants to cut the number of generals you have. gwen: how do you do that? >> i don't know. i don't know if you rip a star off. i don't know. i assume it's attrition. but he didn't spell that out, probably for the best. and he proposes cutting the fat

within his own office which has grown ex pe nextly through -- exponentially just in the last 20 years. i think he sees the budget as the way you really shape the military and military spending in the future. >> he agreed to stay on and serve president obama. he's been there longer than we might have thought he would be. what's his relationship with the white house and the president in particular? >> he has spoken about it briefly and got in a little bit of trouble because he talked about that president obama seemed to be more inquisitive than his predecessor. i think he certainly has a lot of leeway. he's the only republican holdover from the bush administration. and you get a sense that he's really been given the room to shape both policy and budget under this administration. gwen: speaking of republican holdovers, general petraeus, he's now on the ground in afghanistan, and he has gone public. he's giving interviews and talking about what's actually going to happen a year from now when the withdrawal is supposed to start. >> it's interesting.

they're trying to put the genie back in the bottle. when they announced this july, 2011, withdrawal start date, you know, a lot of people reacted. the afghans reacted, the taliban reacted, a lot of people reacted by saying, you can't count on the americans, they're leaving. and for a commander, particularly one in a counteru.s. is warfare, there's never been -- counterinsurgency warfare, you're starting to see general petraeus back away from that and he's the best person to do it. by some people's eyes, he's one counterinsurgency means fighting another. you're going to see a concerted effort to walk away from that deadline and the best person to do that is general petraeus. gwen: that's why he's there. thank you. what was all the stops, the starts, the dramas and declarations and the credit claim and denied, it's easy to believe that nothing ever happens in washington and that when it does, it's bad. >> if it is the judgment of people here for whatever reason that i resign, then, heck, have

the ethics committee expedite this, don't leave me swinging in the wind until november. i don't want anyone to feel embarrassed, awkward. hey, if i was you, i may want me to go away, too. i'm not going away. gwen: charles range who will did he fending himself against ethics charge may be right or wrong. nothing is ever simple in washington. not ethics trials, not getting laws enacted. not getting the trains to run efficiently. but is washington actually broken? we go inside the white house to try to get at that question and your answer is --? >> when i watched scong conchman r -- congressman rangle, i just thought how rare it actually is that you see anybody making a speech on the floor of the house that's real and substantive debate. i think his speech was partly aimed to his constituents but it was aimed at his colleagues ant

the truth is, not much happens in congress in front of other members of congress that can persuade them to vote another way. everyone has their preset talking points. that is what most people think is broken about washington today. that there's not a genuine exchange of ideas. there's not much willingness to have give and take and make the kind of legislative compromises that the country's been known for at the best moments of its history. gwen: into all of this, president obama, who vowed to change the culture of washington, where have i heard this before? how's he doing and is it even possible? >> i think he is, in my opinion, one of the few presidents of recent years who is willing to talk out loud about that effort in a continuing way. his commencement speeches in the exchange with the house republicans in baltimore last year or last winter, he was willing to engage this topic and talk about it. the white house -- all his aides acknowledge that working in washington is very hide. they says, that's the cost of doing business and they're in there pitching every day in the same dirty game as everyone else. they are not purists.

but i do think the president emphasizes the notion and it's been borne out in health care legislation and the financial regulatory reform legislation, that it's worth taking some pretty bad short-term political hits if you think you're doing something that will bear fruit in the long-term. >> i've heard him complain and wine. i don't know about you. >> do you think that the feelings that you found among the advicers to president obama are identical to what you would have found if you talked to advisors in the bush administration? >> i think they're very comparable. nicole wallace under president bush said to me the other day that she felt very -- she felt -- was very familiar what she was hearing the obama people talk about. let's remember that president bush, talk about the professional left, president bush faced some terrible trouble from the professional right on questions like immigration. even his supposed second-term signature issue, social security privatization, in which he ultimately got very little

support from his own party. so i think it's just tough to be the boss. and the government has gotten so big and complex and everything one way or another funnels through the white house that i think it's almost inevitable that they president would face comparable issues now. >> you talked about the lack of give and take in congress and the working back and forth to get things done. and it's certainly true. i'm just wondering, the way that the elections are going now are going to help that? when a bob bennett gets kicked out as the senator of utah because he's not conservative enough, i just wonder, that type of thing, arlen specter switched parties but he was certainly somewhere in the middle, he's gone. are things going to get better? >> the trends do not suggest they will. each party's getting reder and reder and bluer and bluer and we're now in a situation where a where there's going to be another redistricting happening so the state legislators and governers who are elected this fall will play a role in that. it's already a hyperpartisan process to try and protect

incumbents and make sure the districts are more safe. as you point out, the challenge most members face is from the true believers in their own party on either the right or the left. so there's really no incentive, there's no structural incentive to work with members of the other party to get something done. >> lindsay graham, for example. >> he's probably going to pay a big price for his support of he lena kagan eambings nomination of the supreme court. >> how does that change how today's white house conducts itself and how it does its job? >> the origin of this piece for me was my own memory of covering the clinton white house. i thought the pace was brutal and racing then. now with the internet, twitter, facebook, a single laptop anyplace in the world could launch a terrorist attack or could launch a story that the white house has to respond to. and i think that's really something new under the sun. gwen: it certainly is. before we go tonight, we note the passing this week of two

influential lawmakers. ted stevens who died in an airplane crash and dan who passed away from cancer both were larger than life figures in washington and both wrapped under an ethical quode. -- cloud. each man will be remembered for more than just that. >> i think both of them, yes, ted stevens symbolized the power of the appropriators through a long era in which earmarks were king in washington. he was also described back home as the king of alaska for all he did for that state. he was a politician who dominated his state and dominated a part of the senate. dan was one of the last of the true white ethic big citiers. he loved the game and he played it extremely well. he was a classic deal maker and he loved to tell people how he did it. i remember a incident that are we had at "the washington post," a group of us with him one night. he spent several hours regaling us with inside story.

i've never heard anybody explain how congress works any more aptly than he did that night. >> just a few years ago i was covering the senate, there was a vote going on, i was with the reporters who hang out outside the chambers this man comes running out because he thought he was late for the vote. nearly knocked me over. it was ted stevens. he was 83 years old. he was moving like a high school linebacker. he was in remarkable shape. a lot of these guys and women in congress, one thing about them, to an extraordinary degree, some of them are in excellent health. charlie ragel is 80 years old. gwen: we saw him dancing the other night. we want to send our condolences to the families. thank you all for watching. keep up with daily developments on air and online at the pbs news hour and we'll also see you on air and online right here next week on "washington week." good night.

>> the conversation continues online. see more from our panel about the week's top stories and we answer your questions. it's the web cast extra found only on washington week online at pbs.org. >> "washington week" was produced by weta which is solely responsible for its content.

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